New Merch

You all must think I've fallen off the face of the Earth! I've just been REALLY REALLY busy. I picked up a lot of new freelance jobs, kindof all at once, and admidst those, I've been moving back to SJ, and doing Faire. Pretty much all my personal art is on hold while I finish and work on my freelance, but I'll probably be posting up some progress images from some commissioned faire stuff along the way.

The last faire was Valhalla, the two-weekender at Tahoe, that took everything and more out of us, but put enough back in to make it worth it. At least it wasn't hot. We made a decent amount (considering the economy), and nurtured some great connections. I won a commissioned portrait out of it (in prog), and as always the exposure was good. I've decided to forego the coloring book, and to instead introduce a new product. A handful of people have mentioned or inquired about miniature portraits--tiny framed paintings of betrothed, husbands/wives, or the Queen--to wear as necklaces or at their waists. So my idea is to take some high-rez scans of some of the portraits of Elizabeth I, print them out, and mount them into cabochon/cameo frames. I couldn't find simple 2x3 oval frames ANYWHERE, which was incredibly frustrating, so I'm going with these jewelry settings instead, which actually makes perfect sense, as limning (the art of miniature painting, executed most famously by Nicholas Hilliard) was a jewelrysmith's art. I'm not sure how the little paper portraits will affix to the backless cabochon settings, but if a stone can go in there, a piece of cardstock can as well. I really would have preferred frames, and we still might have some mini-framed portraits for sale as well, but I think the cameo miniatures will be good. I ordered 20 cabochon settings...they're not ornate at all, but we'll see how they do. Just for fun, I put some Elizabeth portraits in the frame, digitally, to see what they would look like :-)...